Elk antlers. Obsidian. Foil from the Apollo 11 spacecraft.
Ben Bosworth has made wedding rings out of them.
“If we can get our hands on the material,” the Conifer resident said, “we can figure it out.”
His jewelry outfit, Honest Hands Ring Co., is having its biggest year since launching in 2018. What started as a garage side gig seven years ago has blossomed into a seven-figure business this year, Bosworth said.
Honest Hands manufactures and ships out of Morrison. Bosworth started with 700 square feet at 4285 S. Eldridge St., which records show he purchased for $275,000 in September 2023.
At that time, Bosworth was making 35 to 40 rings a month, not long after beginning to work full time on Honest Hands.
He bought an additional 1,400 square feet next door in June, paying $550,000, records show. And he’s grown the company from two to six people this year.
Last month, Bosworth said, Honest Hands made 266 rings. He’s aiming to triple Honest Hand’s output and staff size within the next three years.
“I think alternative jewelry and the fact that not everyone has to have a gold ring has just been primarily the thing,” Bosworth said. “In the last 10 to 15 years, it’s starting to become more like you can have a titanium ring, you can have a tungsten ring, you can have a silicone ring.”
About half the business comes from custom orders, where customers can send in anything they want inlaid or fused into a ring, although Bosworth draws the line at human teeth and cremated remains.
The other 50% of orders are for the company’s own line of rings, like ones engraved with the San Juan Mountains or a customer’s fingerprint.
The average ring costs $500, Bosworth said, but ranges from about $200 to $5,000, depending on material.
“The rule of thumb is you have to spend three months’ salary on an engagement ring for your fiancée and then the guy goes on Amazon and buys a $25 tungsten ring or something,” Bosworth said. “I think there’s a really nice place for a business to be in between the two.”
Bosworth and ring-making weren’t a fated couple.
The Michigan native wanted to be a mechanical engineer from a young age. During his time at Michigan State University, he built “super-fast go-karts” and parlayed that into a job with a firm that specialized in racing and military vehicles.
While working there, he started a bicycle business on the side with a friend. He also got married around the same time in 2016, but he didn’t want to deal with the hassle of going out and buying his ring.
“I was also building bikes at the time, so I had a lot of the equipment and I was like, ‘I’ll just build my own ring,’” Bosworth recalled.
He did, posted it to Facebook and got more attention than he was expecting. Friends and family periodically asked him to make jewelry for them, and in 2018, he launched a website and started the Honest Hands brand.
At the same time, Bosworth and his wife moved to Colorado. He worked for the bike maker Guerrilla Gravity, where he was in charge of composites. In March 2023, he left to devote all his attention to Honest Hands.
“My strategy is just slow, sustainable growth. I want to create a good lifestyle for everyone who works here.”
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